Blurb from the book

Christchurch is baking in an unrelenting heat wave and people are disappearing.

Cooper Riley, a psychology professor, doesn't make it to work one day. Emma Green, one of his students, doesn't make it home. When ex-cop Theodore Tate comes out of jail, he's begged by Emma's father to help find his daughter. After all, Tate was in jail for nearly killing Emma the year before, so Tate owes him. Big time. Tate has also been asked by his ex-colleague Detective Schroder to assist on a case currently frustrating the Christchurch police department – the search for a female killer called Melissa X. The further Tate looks, the more he keeps coming back to Grover Hills, the mental institution on the outskirts of the city that closed down three years ago. Something bad happened there over the years, down in the basement which the patients called The Scream Room. Tate is going to have to delve into Grover Hill's past if there is any chance of finding Emma Green and Cooper Riley alive. What Tate doesn’t bank on is that his two searches will coalesce in unexpected ways...